The midday December sunlight made the hilt of a sword and the buttons
of a uniform glitter in the street outside.
"Some one fresh," Lilly thought, for the upright bull-necked figure of
the man clanking up the terrace steps was unfamiliar to her.
An imperious stamping before the door, and the bell sounded more
sharply than usual. No, she had not seen this person before. Here was
no frivolous young lieutenant, nor one of the maturer officers, who
were on their dignity till the first shy smile told them how far
they might go. Here was a piercing falcon eye, set in a circle of
crow's-feet, an aquiline high-bred nose, prominent cheek-bones with a
fixed red colour; a small hard firmly closed mouth, which smiled with
cynical benevolence under a bristling moustache, a chin--highly
polished from shaving--retreating in two baggy folds behind a high
military collar.
She saw these details with a heart throbbing so violently that she had
to lean against a bookcase for support.
"This must be what I have been feeling so frightened about," she said
to herself. "This is the dreadful old colonel."
He raised his hand to his cap in careless salute without taking it off.
"Colonel von Mertzbach," he said in a voice the harsh sound of which
suggested unlimited authority and power. "I must speak to you for a few
minutes, my Fraeulein. There are reasons that compel me to make your
acquaintance."
Lilly felt that she was to be subjected to a humiliating
cross-examination, which she was not in the least bound to tolerate.
But never in her life had she seemed to herself so utterly defenceless
as at this moment. She was standing before a judge who had taken on
himself the right to pardon or condemn her according to his pleasure.
She murmured something like consent with trembling lips.
"You appear to be a most dangerous young woman," he said. "You have
turned the heads of all my staff; that is to say, the juniors among
them. They are simply crazy about you."
"I don't understand your meaning," answered Lilly, gathering courage as
well as she could.
"Humph!" he ejaculated, and glued his eyeglass into his eye, to look
her up and down as far as the point where her figure was cut in two by
the counter. "Humph!" he repeated. Then he continued: "In these cases
it is easy enough to play the innocent. Nevertheless, I can fully
sympathise with my young men. In their place I should probably have
done the same. But it looks, Fraeulein, as if, in spite of your youth
and inexperience, you have a fair share of feminine wiles at your
command, otherwise you would scarcely have drawn these somewhat
fastidious young men here so often with that immaculately reserved
manner of yours; but, after all, perhaps it's the manner that's done
it."
Tears rose to Lilly's eyes. She could easily have flung back his
insults, but the man's personality mastered her. She searched in vain
for words to oppose him; his piercing eyes seemed to go through and
through her and deprive her of speech; his cynical smile held her in
thrall. So she merely sat down and cried. He on his side rose and came
nearer the counter.
"How much you have reason to feel hurt, Fraeulein, in your _amour
propre_, I cannot say. It's not my intention to make you cry. On the
contrary, I want you as calmly as possible to give me a little
information about yourself. It may be of importance to your future."
Lilly felt the necessity of pulling herself together, because this man
desired it.
She wiped her eyes and looked at him penitently, sniffling a little as
she used to do when a child after being scolded.
He inquired her name, her antecedents, whether she had a father and a
mother, what school she had been at, and what she was doing there. On
her mentioning her guardian's name a mocking smile flitted over his
face.
"I am acquainted with that gentleman's philosophy of life," he said.
"You are, then, utterly alone in the world?"
Lilly said "Yes."
"And you would not object to have a helping-hand extended to you by
someone to whom you could turn in time of trouble?"
Lilly did not think there was any likelihood of such a person turning
up.
"I will think it over," he said, frowning. "Anyhow, you cannot stay for
ever in this hole. Do they treat you well?"
"Pretty well," Lilly answered; and half laughing, half crying, she
added, "I don't get enough to eat, and sometimes I am----" she was
going to say thrashed, but stopped in shame, and said "punished," which
hardly stated the case.
The colonel burst into a laugh, which sounded like the cracking of a
whip.
"Greatly to your credit to be able to take a humorous view of the
matter," he said, and he rose to go. "I have ascertained what I wanted
to know, Fraeulein. My young men may continue to come here as much as
they like. In the whole town they could not find more irreproachable
society. Should any of them forget themselves, and not treat you with
proper respect, just communicate with me. But I am sure there will be
no necessity. I wish you good-day, my Fraeulein."
Lilly looked after him, and watched the heavy cavalry swagger with
which he crossed the paved terrace. The winter sun seemed to be shining
with the sole object of illuminating his figure and dancing on his
accoutrements.
He looked back at her window when he reached the street, and saluted
courteously, giving her as he did so a searching, almost threatening,
glance from beneath his knitted brows. Then he vanished.
Lilly's mind was now besieged by the following questions: "What did it
mean? What did they want her to do? Why couldn't they leave her in
peace?" She would have liked to cry and lament and be pitied. But, deep
down, there was a festive note, almost a note of vanity in her
feelings. She congratulated herself on her new hopes. Had he meant when
he asked her if she would like a helping hand, a prop and stay in
trouble, that he would be that prop and stay? It soothed and did her
heart good to think of it. Perhaps he was to be the guide and protector
so bitterly needed in her stumbling young life? He might perhaps
relieve Herr Pieper, who didn't trouble himself about her, of his
guardianship. Perhaps he wanted to adopt her himself? There was no
knowing. If only his eyes hadn't pierced like daggers, if he hadn't
laughed so mockingly and given her that evil look at the last! And then
she remembered the warning of her lively comrade: "If he finds his way
here, the Lord have mercy on you."
What nonsense! As if anything could happen to her behind her counter,
of which no one had ever dared to raise the flap and come on the other
side; and how safe she was behind the bookcase L to N, where she
couldn't even be seen.
The visit of their colonel to the library seemed to have damped his
young men's ardour; in spite of the permission given them, perhaps
because of it, none of them put in an appearance during the next few
days. Lilly asked herself if this was a sign of the protection he had
promised to exercise over her. But something was the matter with her;
she scarcely knew what.
One morning, a week later, the younger of the sisters, who, in
expectation of some love-letter, kept watch for the postman, threw an
envelope on the floor at Lilly's feet, with the exclamation, "A
'coronet' for you, you officers' hack!"
This, coming from the sisters, was quite a mild form of address.
Lilly opened her letter and read the following:
"My Fraeulein,
"Will you allow me on the strength of our recent interview to make the
following suggestion? I want a private secretary and reader. Are you
open to accept the post? As I am not a married man, you could not of
course reside in my house, but I would undertake to find a home for you
in a respectable and suitable family. I have consulted your guardian,
and the plan has his approval.
"Yours truly,
"Von Mertzbach.
"Colonel commanding the ---- Regiment of Uhlans."
Ah, here it was at last! Happiness--happiness standing on the other
side of the snowy street, beckoning and calling to her: "Come out of
your vault, out into the world. I will show you life, and something
new." "Something new is always interesting;" had not her lively comrade
said so?
Then she pictured herself seated at the colonel's big writing-table.
The colonel dictated to her, and all the time his eyes pierced her
through and through, and searched, always searched, and her pen fell
from her hand. She wanted to jump up and run away, but she could not;
his eyes held her in thrall.
She sat down and wrote a correct little note declining the offer.
Though she appreciated the honour he did her, she felt she was not
qualified for so onerous a post, and that it would be wiser to remain
in her present position, which, though not altogether happy, was one of
which she was capable of discharging the duties. She signed herself,
"Yours in grateful esteem, Lilly Czepanek."
So that was over. Now things must go on in their old groove,
peacefully, if the wicked sisters would allow peace.
Christmas was approaching, but it cannot truthfully be said that the
preparations for the festival at Frau Asmussen's were marked by much
rejoicing and goodwill. She grumbled at the bad times, and the
ridiculous custom of giving all the world presents. Her daughters
argued shrilly, and at every opportunity, the question as to whether
refined and superior girls like themselves were called upon to gather
round a Christmas tree in the company of common minxes! There were none
of those treasured little mysteries on foot, which at such a time bring
joy and gladness into even the saddest and most poverty-stricken of
homes.
Lilly knitted her mother a brown woollen cross-over, bought her two
picture puzzles and a wooden flower vase--china being forbidden--and
sent them with a box of chocolates to the lunatic asylum.
Her thoughts just now often wandered from her mother to her father, who
had now absented himself for more than four and a half years, and had
given no sign of his existence.
In her loneliness Lilly clung to a hope of his reappearance. On
Christmas Eve, between six and seven, he would be sure to come in, his
great-coat covered with snow, and embrace her with the demonstrative
affection peculiar to him. She could almost smell the perfume from his
burnished locks. Or, if he didn't come himself, he would send a
messenger-boy with a preliminary greeting and a mysterious parcel full
of costly silks. And a winter hat, too; for that was what she wanted
more than anything.
When the others had gone to bed she took from the bottom of her trunk
the score of "The Song of Songs," and hummed over to herself her
favourite airs. There were many passages in it that she could never
sing without tears. In these days she was constantly in tears,
notwithstanding that there was all the time a hesitating earnest of
happiness dawning faintly on her horizon.
It was an exquisite vague sense of being lifted up, a growing of wings,
a listening in wonder to inner voices, which sounded as familiar and
gentle as a mother's, yet strangely prophetic and solemn.
Sometimes she found herself on her knees, not praying but dreaming,
with arms outstretched and fascinated eyes lifted to the lamp, as if
from that region of light the foreshadowed miracle was to come.
Thus she celebrated her Christmas feast in the sanctuary of her soul,
and the actual Christmas Eve drew nearer and nearer.
At the last minute, with groans and moans, a few presents were
mustered. Lona and Mi ran about wildly from shop to shop making their
purchases. They even bestowed a few civil words on Lilly, who
recognised their kindness by looking the other way when Lona hovered
round the cash-box. She knew exactly how much, or rather how little,
was inside, and that if there was anything missing it wouldn't ruin her
to replace it out of her own purse.
Before supper she was called into the back parlour, where the Christmas
tree stood alight on the table--apparently shy of itself.
The sisters shook hands with Lilly, and Frau Asmussen, sitting already
over her medicinal glass, delivered a few platitudes on the
significance of Christmas, and expressed her regret at not being able
to spend it with her excellent husband. Then everyone apologised
because the presents were not handsomer. At first it was the feeling
that you were expected to give something, that it was your duty to
give, which had disgusted these generous souls who thought giving
should be spontaneous; then, when they had got over this feeling, it
was too late to buy anything worth having, not that the red check
overall apron wasn't decent enough, and the penwiper was not so bad
either--considering business was slow.
"I am ashamed to say I have nothing at all to give," Lilly answered.
But what she was most ashamed of was that she was once more on friendly
terms with the Asmussen sisters.
"I have no strength of character, not a scrap," she told herself as she
crunched a piece of marzipan, which the elder and worst of the sisters
had given her.
The library bell rang loudly, and a man, loaded with parcels, was
asking if Fraeulein Czepanek lived there.
Lilly's heart bounded. "From papa--it must be from papa!" she murmured
in jubilation.
For a few minutes she scarcely dared trust herself to touch the
parcels. She skipped round them aimlessly tidying her hair. Only on the
sisters' exhortation did she undo the strings. With what envious eyes
the two girls looked on!
Such beautiful things came to light. A faced-cloth dress, lace-trimmed,
a delicate blue foulard, a pink silk petticoat, shoes of glossy patent
leather and tan suede, six pairs of gloves, three pair elbow-length,
all sorts of jabots and cravats, a fichu of Brussels lace to wear with
Empire frocks, pocket-books, stationery, bonbons--more and still more
things; even the sorely needed winter hat was included, a soft fluffy
grey beaver in a picture-shape, that always had suited her noble style
of features. It was trimmed with ribbon and ostrich feathers.
Altogether it was quite a trousseau.
The faces of the two sisters grew longer and longer. Lilly herself
ceased to be delighted. She began rummaging in wild anxiety through the
boxes for a clue to the sender, a letter or card. She had long ago
abandoned the idea of her father having come back to heap on her such
generous gifts. Yet an instinct of self-preservation made her keep up
the deception.
At last, at the bottom of the glove-box, she found a card. She ran away
to read it in the library. Under the hanging lamp she scanned,
blanching with fright, the visiting-card of "Baron von Mertzbach,
Colonel in Command of the ---- Regiment of Uhlans." Beneath his name he
had written in the thick stiff handwriting she knew already, "With good
wishes to his lonely little friend from his own lonely hearth."
She went back to the parlour where the sisters, green with envy,
received her with a chilly smile, while Frau Asmussen muttered
enigmatical phrases over her steaming glass.
"They really are from papa," Lilly said, and wondered why her own voice
sounded so toneless.
The Asmussen sisters laughed jeeringly, and began putting the things
away in the boxes.
Lilly held in her hand a little china bonbon box, filled to the brim
with curious, rich-looking and fragrant-smelling sweets. She glanced
from one sister to the other, uncertain as to whether she might dare
offer them some of the sweets. She was afraid they might refuse with an
abusive epithet, so she let fall the lid, which represented a cupid in
a garland of roses, and buried the _bonbonniere_ in the depths of one
of the boxes. Then she crept away to bed in her corner and cried
bitterly.
The sisters went on whispering together for a long time. They built the
boxes up into a tower on the library counter, and then haughtily made a
detour so as not to come in contact with them.
The next morning Lilly called a passing messenger, and sent back the
whole pile of packages to the donor without a word. Afterwards she went
to the sisters and said:
"It wasn't true what I told you last night. Papa didn't send the
things, and I have returned them."
The two girls, who had intended to make themselves agreeable to her in
a malicious sort of way, could not conceal their disappointment.
"I should never have taken her for such a ninny," said the younger.
"She is not so simple as you think," scoffed the elder, true to her
character of scenting out ulterior motives, "only very designing. She
wants to drive her admirer still more distracted, but she'd better take
care she doesn't outwit herself. The stupidest man can soon distinguish
between what is genuine and what is put on." As if to illustrate what
genuine simplicity was like, Lona drew her petticoat tightly round her
limbs with one hand, drew her night-jacket decorously together over her
bosom with the other, and, tossing her head, cast a look of withering
scorn over her shoulder at Lilly, displaying all the virtuous
indignation that exalted natures sometimes betray.
In spite of this, Lilly noticed that the sisters' manner towards her
had changed somewhat. She was evidently of more importance to them than
she had been before, and they refrained from offending her.
Nothing much happened during the next few days, with the exception of a
few of the young officers resuming their visits to the library. They
exchanged their books hurriedly, and were extremely correct in their
behaviour. None of them seemed inclined now to sit on the counter or on
the back of a chair in a free-and-easy attitude.
On New Year's Eve, Lilly was the recipient of a second note. It ran
thus:
"My Fraeulein,
"You have grossly misconstrued my motives in sending you a small
remembrance at Christmas-time. Matters must be cleared up between us. I
would rather divulge the plans I have in mind for you verbally. But,
owing to my position, I cannot very well call on you again. If you have
your future at heart, come and see me to-morrow sometime in the
evening. I will expect you up till eight o'clock. I give you my word of
honour that you shall return home in safety.
"Yours,
"Mertzbach."
Should she go or not go? The question kept Lilly awake the whole night.
If only she could rid herself of that feeling of dread, the fear that
robbed her almost of breath at the very thought of him. What might not
happen if she stood face to face with him again? She decided not to go,
knowing all the time that she would go.
She lived through the day in a kind of stupor. Towards evening she
asked Frau Asmussen's leave to go to New Year's Eve Benediction. The
two sisters exchanged significant glances, but to-day they were too
occupied with their own affairs to pay much attention to Lilly's.
She put on her old felt hat, battered and discoloured by exposure to
many a shower, and her winter coat, which was so shrunk it made her
look narrow-chested. Pull the sleeves down as she would, nothing could
make them reach to her wrists.
If she had thought of the matter at all, she would have thought twice
about going so shabbily clad to call at a grand house. But she didn't
think. She felt as if she was doing nothing of her own accord. Strange,
mysterious powers were pushing her hither and thither, like a pawn on a
chessboard. Unseen hands helped her to dress. They loosened the plaits
on her neck, unfastened the tight buttons of her coat so that her
contracted chest should have room to show its young contour, and
painted her cheeks, wan from want of sleep, with a rich glow of
excitement and triumph.
Not till she stepped out into the frosty air did she feel properly
awake.
"Where do you want to go?" a voice asked within her, "I might go and
see St. Joseph," she answered herself.
But she did not go to St. Joseph. She made a wide circuit round St.
Ann's, crossed the market-place, where she saw the Asmussen sisters
sitting in Frangipani's with two admirers, escaped a gallant follower
with difficulty, and then suddenly found herself in front of the
latticed shutters of the house where, up four flights of stairs, the
whirring sewing-machine had ground the last shred of reason out of her
poor, ruined mother's head.
There was a light in the windows of the attic where she had once lived.
Probably someone else sat there now, slaving day and night, night and
day, at the drudgery of making cheap underclothes. Perhaps one day she
too would sit there, regretting bitterly her lost youth, as if it had
been a crime.
"If you have your future at heart," he had written.
And now she turned and ran--ran for her life, and didn't stop till she
stood on the threshold of a brilliantly lighted house, before which a
freezing sentinel with drawn sabre paced up and down, as he kept guard
over the most important dignitary of the town.
"Where are you going?" asked the voice again. For answer she sprang up
the wide carpeted stairway and ran into a lackey with silver braid on
his knee-breeches. Without speaking, he quietly took her umbrella,
while a slight malicious smile flitted over his imperturbable
countenance.
Softly, white doors flew back before her, lights with rosy shades like
magic flowers shed soft radiance, lovely barenecked ladies with diamond
tiaras looked down smiling on her from gilded oval frames.
How quiet and beautifully warm it was in these spacious rooms; on that
thick soft carpet one might lie down and go to sleep.... If only that
feeling of fear would not clutch at her throat, her brain, her temples,
gripping them as in a vice.
Another door flew open. Green duskiness lay beyond, like the interior
of a dense forest on a summer day, and out of the dusk his figure came
towards her, broad, imposing, clanking.... Her hand was taken in his
and she was drawn into the green twilight. Dark walls of books rose on
all sides, and from somewhere came the flash of deadly weapons,
helmets, and coats of mail.
She could not trust herself to look at him. Even after she had been
seated some minutes in a high-backed carved oak chair, which projected
over her head like a canopy, she had not given him a glance. She heard
his voice, the reverberating harshness of which seemed mellowed now to
the rolling notes of an organ.
Nothing that she saw, felt, and heard smacked of the earth, yet neither
was it heaven nor hell. It was like a terrifying phantasmagoria where
human souls floated, vacillating dully between misery and happiness.
At last the sense of the words he was speaking penetrated to her
understanding. There was nothing at all unearthly about them; on the
contrary, they dealt in a practical way with the return of his
Christmas presents, which he still considered hers, and had stored in a
cupboard to await her gracious acceptance.
Lilly shook her head with a mechanical smile. She could not find
courage to utter a protest.
"And now, my dear child," he began again, "you may ask what induces me,
a man getting on in years, to pursue you with all the ardour of a
youthful lover?"
When he said "getting on in years," she involuntarily looked up. There
he sat, with the light of the green-shaded reading-lamp full upon him,
with the orders on his breast giving forth a golden radiance. The
silver fringes of his epaulettes quivered at every movement like small
snakes. He radiated the same glory as those haloed figures of saints in
churches, tricked out in their draperies of gold and brocade.
Lilly's eyes dropped in shame and confusion before so much splendour.
"My object in looking you up that day," he continued, "was to inquire
into the cause of a dispute that had arisen among some of my younger
officers. It promised to be rather a serious affair, and I was
compelled to take steps. I expected to find a little flirty shopgirl,
and I found--well, to put it shortly--I found you. You will perhaps go
on to ask, 'What of that?' for you cannot yet be aware of what your
power is, or rather what your potentialities are, for with you, my dear
Fraeulein, all is in process of development. I am what is called a judge
of women, and I can see in what you are to-day what you may become
to-morrow if--and remember a great deal depends on this 'if'--if your
development is directed into the right channel. To stay where you are
now would simply be your ruin. Have the courage to entrust your fate to
me, and I can guarantee all will be well with you."
His tone was calm and paternal, at least so it sounded to Lilly.
Feeling a little reassured, and with a hope for her future leaping up
within her, she ventured once more to look at him. This time, through
the shimmer of gold and silver, she beheld a pair of penetrating glassy
eyes fixed on her full of eager inquiry.
Again she became a prey to paralysing terror. She sat speechless and
shuddering.
"Whatever I do," she thought to herself, "it will be no good. He will
get his way."
"I have a fine old place," he went on: "Lischnitz in West Prussia, not
far from the Vistula, where military duties do not allow of my going
often. A well-bred middle-aged lady, a Fraeulein von Schwertfeger, keeps
house for me there. If you paid Lischnitz a visit, I can promise you
beforehand that she would welcome you with open arms. Under her
chaperonage you would have excellent opportunities of developing into
what I foresee you will be in the future. In this way you would be
provided for, and I should have the great satisfaction, when I come
backwards and forwards, of finding my home brightened by youth and
beauty."
He had risen, and in the excitement of conversation walked about the
room with short swaggering steps, and at every step his medal and his
epaulettes tinkled and jingled like sleigh-bells. At last Lilly heard
nothing but this metallic clinking, and ceased to grasp what he was
saying.
When he had finished speaking, he paused in front of her, so near that
she could smell the scent of the hairwash he used.
She leant back in her chair feeling somehow as if she were going to be
bound hand and foot and carried away beyond the reach of help. She knew
that she would neither scream nor resist, so completely was she in his
power.
"Look at me," he said.
She tried to, she was so obedient, but she could not.
He put his hand under her chin and gave her head a backward tilt, but
she kept her eyes almost shut, and saw only the scarlet border of his
military coat.
And then she felt herself suddenly begin to sink; the red border went
up to the skies ... all round was the buzzing of bees ... and then
nothing more.
When she came to herself, there was something wet and cold on her
breast, and a woman's print skirt, with a smoky smell, brushed her
face.
It was still green twilight. A breastplate hung opposite her, reminding
her of a scoured and brightly polished kettle. She felt so comfortable,
she didn't want to stir.
A rough, bony hand stroked her forehead and a kindly voice murmured
over and over again: "Poor young thing! poor child!"
Lilly, thinking it was time to give a sign of returning consciousness,
moved, and the strong hand slid under the back of her neck and propped
her up, and the kindly voice asked what she would like to do.
"I want to go home," said Lilly.
"That can't be done this minute," said the voice, "because he gave
orders that he must speak to you again before he goes. But take my
advice: just say 'Thank you' and 'Good-bye,' and be off as fast as you
can. This is no place for a young girl like you."
Lilly sat up and arranged her collar. It was the cook bending over her,
with her rugged, weather-beaten, thick-lipped face full of compassion.
She asked Lilly, as she patted her shoulder, what she should bring her
as a pick-me-up--egg and wine, or a liqueur.
"Nothing, thank you," Lilly answered. "Let me go home."
"You shall, my dearie, but I must call him in first."
She shuffled to the door, and Lilly reached for her hat, on which she
must have beep lying, for it was more out of shape than ever.
"I shall have to get a new one now," and she tried to calculate how
much she could afford to give out of her narrow means.
The door opened and he came in, followed by the old cook.
Lilly was no longer frightened.... Everything seemed far, far off--he
too. Nothing seemed to matter.
"Now she's ready to be put into a cab," suggested the cook.
"Your presence here is not required any more!" he thundered at her.
The cook ventured to mumble an objection.
"Go!" he roared. And she scuffled out.
Lilly's sensations were now only those of languid fear.
"I wonder what he means to do with me?" she thought. Her own fate
scarcely interested her at all.
He paced up and down, the silver spurs on his heels clanking.
"We must have some light," he said. "Clearness is essential to the
matter in hand."
He rang for the man-servant who had smiled in that sly, mocking way.
The man lighted the jets of the chandelier and retired, with a sidelong
inquisitive glance at Lilly--but no smile this time.
She was still sitting on the couch where she had been when she regained
consciousness. Her mind seemed a blank as she twirled her old felt hat
round and round.
In the brilliant light cast from the ceiling she saw the colonel in all
his resplendence, still silently brooding, as he paced up and down.
She could look him quite calmly in the face now. "It's useless to try
and defend myself," she thought, "so I don't care what he does."
Next he seized a chair and planted it in front of her, so close that
when he sat down his knees nearly touched hers.
"Listen to me, child," he began, his words ringing out clear and
incisive, like words of command. "While you lay here in your swoon I
was thinking over in the next room very earnestly what's to be done. I
came to a decision about your future; but of that later. You, of
course, must have observed by this time that my sentiments with regard
to you are not exactly paternal. The older I grow the less am I able to
understand what so-called paternal feelings are. To cut the matter
short, I have conceived a passion for you which astonishes myself....
If I were ten years older--I am fifty-four--I should attribute it to
senility. Do you know what that means?"
Lilly shook her head. She could see his face now so clearly that to her
dying day she could never have forgotten what it was like.
His eyes flamed in their red sockets and pierced her with the
rapier-like sharpness that had at first filled her with terror. In grey
bristling strands his hair was brushed back from the temples; but his
moustache, on the other hand, was coal-black, and shadowed his gloomy
mouth like a patch of ink through which his teeth made a white line of
demarcation. From the corners of his mouth the heavy folds of flesh
descended into the collar of his uniform.
"How funny it is," reflected Lilly, "that I am doomed to be the love of
this bad old man!"
Well, if it was his will, she was powerless to resist.
"The world could tell you that I am reputed to be, in spite of my
years, a subduer of women; it may be because I have never had much
respect for them. But now comes a case which ... how shall I express
it? ... a case that is somewhat unique. I have decided that before the
old year dies I must make up my mind one way or the other." He looked
at the clock. "I have still half an hour to give you, then I am due at
a reception. Well, not to waste time, I may as well confess ... my
intentions towards you in the first place were not honourable. To say
that I wanted to seduce you would hardly be correct, considering how
little there can be of a seductive nature about a man of my years. It
wouldn't have been here, and not to-day, as I gave you my word of
honour in my letter; but you would have been mine sooner or later, of
that you may rest assured."
"I've no doubt of it," thought Lilly, who listened as calmly as if she
were reading an exciting novel. Still, her old horror of him did not
return; and still she waited with dull curiosity to see what would
happen next.
"If you had resisted and shown fight, all the more certainly would you
have been overcome. I am an old hand, you know. Then came your fainting
fit, which gave me some insight into your disposition. I was forced to
admit to myself that a conquest by force in your case would give me no
satisfaction. You are made of noble stuff, and I do not require a
languishing companion.... Whimpering mistresses have always been my
abhorrence. I don't care to have my comfort disturbed by scenes. I have
had experiences of the kind, which I am unwilling to repeat. So while
you lay here being tended by my cook, I came to the conclusion I had
been on the wrong tack. I resolved to adopt another course."
Lilly was overcome with a pleasing sense of gratitude, as if she had
been the recipient of an enormous benefaction. "How splendid of him,
how kind," she thought, "to let off a poor stupid thing like me!"
She cast a stealthy glance at his hands, which, long and yellow, hung
listlessly between his knees. She would have liked to imprint a kiss on
them to show how grateful she was, but shame deterred her; she was
almost sorry that so glorious a man didn't want to have anything more
to do with her.
"Well, I took further counsel with myself," he continued, and his voice
sounded sterner, as if steeled by the force of his resolution. "It was
not altogether a new idea; I had often, indeed, thought of it. But it
seemed ridiculous at first, and only to be resorted to as an extreme
measure--a way of escape which I am now cutting off. Finally, I asked
myself, why shouldn't I? I am not ambitious. I know too well the rotten
machinery of diplomatic and military service; it's not worth while to
give one's sweat and blood to oil the wheels. So the idea of
resignation doesn't displease me. Of course, I should have to retire in
the circumstances, perhaps anyhow, because there are mornings when I
can hardly sit on my horse from the pain caused by that cursed
sciatica."
"I wonder why he is telling me all this?" thought Lilly, and felt
flattered that so distinguished a man should discuss such important
matters with her.
"What is more fatal still for me is that I foresee the rising of a
whole generation, thirsting to be revenged on the robbery that has been
perpetrated at its expense. Naturally, the unflinching eye and the firm
hand can accomplish much.... In either case, one must dare something.
Well, my dear child, what do you say?"
Lilly was silent, ashamed of being so stupid that she was not in the
least able to follow him. It all sounded to her like double Dutch.
"Well, will you ... or not?"
"Will I what?" stammered Lilly.
"Good God! All this time I have been asking you to be my wife," the
colonel replied.